Thomas Cook online has signed a seven-figure deal with SME cloud provider CatN to host its e-commerce site.
The agreement comes on the back of recent work by CatN,initially brought in by Thomas Cook as a skunkworks operation,which resulted in consolidating fragmented online systems across seven datacentres.
CatN was briefed to drive IT efficiency and provide options for Thomas Cook,as it encountered difficulties in meeting its agile deployment requirements.
The new agreement will include a private cloud design and build,datacentre,networking,security,storage,virtualisation,monitoring and innovative support and consulting on technology and open-source innovations.
Lee Pritchard,head of infrastructure at Thomas Cook online,said the company was initially hesitant to sign a deal with a smaller organisation,but chose CatN on the basis of its track record.
"We also realised there was an advantage of going with a smaller company as we were more of a priority for them,and CatN has always been very responsive,"Pritchard said.
"The previous hosting provider had mandate to serve everyone,ability its ability to do online constrained as its brief was too broad."
Pritchard said the company's web presence should increase as a result of the deal,as its online operational capacity becomes more efficient.
Last year Thomas Cook signed a 10-year outsourcing deal with Accenture to provide infrastructure management,IT service delivery,service management,service desk,datacentre services,workspace services,network services,security services,and finance and accounting business process outsourcing(BPO)services.
